Beliefs Affect Our Actions

I spent yesterday morning outlining some of the basic truths concerning the Good News, sin and punishment. Hopefully it was helpful to some, it was certainly helpful to me to think through and write down in a concise manner. I think for me that is all in place, and I need to continue to focus on the kingdom lifestyle that such thoughts and beliefs demand. Its not enough to belief these things in our hearts and minds, but they must show themselves in our lives.

James has it right in his letter, stating - [14] "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith (belief} but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? [15] Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. [16] If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? [17] In the same way, faith (belief) by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." James 2:14-17 NIV. I inserted belief in the text in parentheses because the original Greek word 'pistis', here translated faith can also be translated belief. The definition of the word is given as follows: n 1. conviction of the truth of anything, belief; in the NT of a conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things.

So, what we believe must influence our actions and be seen in our actions. A.W. Tozer says the most important thing is what we believe deep in our heart about God. Thus, its not just important to get these basic truths into our mind, but they must penetrate to our very souls, deep into our hearts and become the motivation for our actions. It is essential that I think about my beliefs, and choose to act upon them. In our world today, we spend to little time thinking about our actions, as we are to busy to even stop for a moment. We have a huge deficit of integrity of belief and action in the church - for we say we believe things, but our actions say otherwise, and as James says, that means those beliefs are actually dead.

So for me, this leads me to reflect on my life and what I show I believe by my actions, for those are the beliefs that are actually alive in my life. I must look at my life and take a real inventory of my actions, and choose to change my actions if they do not align wth my core beliefs. This is the heart of repentance, changing the way we think, and then changing our actions to line up with this new way of thinking. Its not enough to think about turning around (one defintion of repentance), we must actually do so.

As I reflect on my life as a follower of Christ, an adopted son of God, and a representative of Him in His Kingdom, I should see that my belief and actions are in line with His beliefs and actions, as demonstrated by Jesus. The bracelets that were in style in the church a few years back had WWJD on them - which was supposed to cause us to reflect on what Jesus would do, and then endeavor to do the same thing. This is exactly right. We are called to be His representatives, so we should be representing Him to those we meet. We have, through Jesus, been restored to right relationship with the Father, and have been clothed in His (Jesus) righteousness. We are God's adopted sons and daughters and Jesus showed us what the Son of God acted like and valued when He was on the earth.